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Otsego County planning staff walk the public through new tax parcel viewer
Summary
Otsego County Planning Department held a webinar demonstrating its public tax parcel viewer, showing how to find parcels, use layers and imagery, create buffers, export data (CSV/shapefile/KML), print maps and use measurement tools; staff said the recording and resources will be posted online.
Trevor Fuller, assistant director of the Otsego County Planning Department, opened a public webinar on the county’s tax parcel viewer and said the session would be recorded and posted on the department’s web page.
Levi Anderson, the county’s GIS coordinator, led a live screen-share tutorial showing how to access the viewer from the Planning Department’s Mapping & GIS page. Anderson demonstrated navigation controls (pan, zoom), multiple parcel-selection methods (single click, rectangle, lasso) and how clicking a parcel opens an attribute panel with parcel metadata such as acreage, parcel key, mailing address and district assignments. Anderson advised that searching by parcel ID is the most reliable lookup method.
Anderson displayed the viewer’s legal disclaimer and cautioned that the web maps "are not the actual survey lines" and are derived from a global web layer, not a certified survey. He demonstrated measurement tools and noted that measurements in the app are estimates; only a certified survey is legally binding.
The tutorial covered map layers and thematic datasets available in the viewer, including address points, municipal boundaries, school districts, voting and fire districts, hydrography, wetlands and FEMA flood data. Anderson switched base maps and historical orthoimagery, noting the tool includes imagery from 2005, 2010, 2014 and the county’s 2025 NAIP flyover for users who need historical or canopy imagery.
Using Otsego County’s courthouse area as an example, Anderson showed how to build proximity buffers (illustrating 200-foot and 450-foot buffers) to list parcels within a chosen radius. He then demonstrated exporting selected results. "If you are using an Esri enterprise-based system, shapefile is common; if you need a spreadsheet, CSV is a good option," Anderson said.
Anderson also walked through the print workflow, showing templates (for example, letter landscape), map titling, scale and print-quality settings, and recommended PDF for formal or legal documentation. He showed an example area measurement of 0.43 acres to illustrate the measurement tool.
For users who want additional datasets or custom work, Anderson directed participants to the Otsego County GIS hub and advised that attendees can submit GIS requests; he provided contact information for follow-up support. Trevor Fuller closed the webinar, thanked participants and reiterated that the recording and supporting tutorials would be posted on the Planning Department web page.
